Monthly Archives: December 2014

Open Discussion: Week of December 8, 2014; Winter Meetings Edition

Weekly Discussion

MLB began their coverage of baseball’s winter meetings at 8:00PM Sunday evening.  Early in the show, Greg Amsinger, Harold Reynolds, and Dan Plesac offered their opinions on the level of activity we could expect from the Phillies at the 2014 Winter Meetings.  Their preview suggested that the Phillies –

  1. might be as inactive this year as they were last year because of the big contracts.
  2. had missed their window of opportunity for unloading their big contracts.
  3. had a new window and their big contracts didn’t look so bad.
  4. had an opportunity to move their big contracts, even Howard’s “if he’s able to turn it around” (Huh? What does that even mean?)

After these four earth shattering pronouncements, with which all three announcers agreed, I decided to mute the volume by 8:14PM and prep the Open Discussion for  Monday. Continue reading Open Discussion: Week of December 8, 2014; Winter Meetings Edition →

Winter Ball Round Up: Nov. 30 – Dec. 6

9. Winter Leagues, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Updates on Phillies’ minor league players from around winter ball  during the last week –

  • Aaron Altherr hasn’t played since November 18th.
  • Willians Astudillo hasn’t played since November 23rd, his only appearance where he hit a 3-run HR in a 1-4 outing.
  • Emmanuel Marrero hasn’t played since November 26th.
  • Cameron Perkins hasn’t played since October 29th.
  • Darin Ruf hasn’t played since October 31st.  I read that he suffered a muscle strain, returned to the US for a second opinion, and was sent home for the winter.
  • Wilber Oberto hasn’t played since November 4th.
  • Jesse Biddle hasn’t pitched since November 8th when he was shut down for the winter after an injury.
  • Ethan Martin hasn’t pitched since November 29th.
  • Lino Martinez hasn’t pitched since November 6th.
  • Yacksel Rios hasn’t pitched since November 18th.
  • Alexis Rivero hasn’t pitched since October 20th.

Position players – Continue reading Winter Ball Round Up: Nov. 30 – Dec. 6 →

What’s next? Here is what is next

Other Stuff

I wanted to make a quick post here, just so everyone is clear. Gregg reached out to me a few days ago and mentioned he may be ready to move on. When I started this site more than 7 years ago, I never intended to move on to anything else. 2 years ago, I had lost the desire to write on a regular basis, at least with regard to minor league prospects. I’m still not sure that I’m cut out to do it anymore, but the site won’t go away and the site won’t die. I’ll continue to renew the domain name and will keep everything here as an archive, at the very least.

I have a very demanding job and that limits my ability to write. I don’t know if my next post will be tomorrow, next week, or next month. I’ve had the urge to write on occasion the last few years, but I never acted on it. Now that the site is in flux, I may get that urge again. For now, I hope that everyone who comes to and uses the site decides to stick around. I can’t promise the level of content here over the next few weeks/months/years, but all of the hard work that went into the site for the last 7+ years won’t be discarded or deleted.

Until the next one…

What Next?

Announcements

Well, if you are reading this I can still post. And, if I can still post, I will continue to post.

I was as shocked as you when I read on Twitter that Phuture Phillies was “shutting down“. I read Gregg’s goodbye post and eventually saw the e-mail he sent me shortly before he posted his goodbye.

Vic Filoromo contacted me last night about keeping the site up and running. I am not adverse to the idea, but Gregg was the last person to have admin privileges. In a later contact with him, I got the impression that they are not his to pass along.

So, while I can still post, I can’t maintain some of the site’s features. I can’t update Transactions. I can’t add new Categories, like adding a new menu option for the 2015 Reader Top 30. I can’t update any file that I didn’t create. I can’t add new writers.

But I can continue to post until some outside force takes down the site. So, I’ll start the Reader Top 30 next week. I’ll continue to post a Weekly Discussion feed. I’ll continue to post transactions.

I have been approached by other sites and asked to consider joining them. This surprised me since I don’t so much write articles as report what I see. Then I realized that my best asset isn’t how or what I write, but more that I’m actually on site during spring training, extended spring training, FSL, GCL, and FIL.

I’ve grown attached to Phuture Phillies and all the readers and commenters here. I like the format and enjoy the interaction in the comment section. I chose Phuture Phillies because of the quality of comments posted here. So, while carefully considering these offers to join other sites, I will continue working here.  Hopefully, Vic will continue to contribute as well.

(BTW, if you rely on Twitter to notify you of new posts here, that account belongs to Gregg.  He’ll probably be taking that with him, so you may want to follow us to receive notices of new posts at @jimpeyton19 and @victorfiloromo.  My account has the extra added bonus of in-game tweets during the season.)

“Every New Beginning….

Other Stuff

Comes from some other beginning’s end”. SemiSonic. So, in 2007, James gave me an opportunity to write for Phuture Phillies during a difficult personal time period and with that opportunity came over seven years of feeling “like a kid in a candy store”.  I had the opportunity to write about a passion and be in an environment (at the ballpark)that is one of my personal nirvana’s.  I met great people, learned a ton about the industry (media, baseball and management), and perhaps most importantly made lifelong friends.  To James, my heartfelt thanks.  When James left the site over two years ago, I did my best to keep up the site and did so with the goal of keeping the site aligned with James vision.  The day to day work in keeping up a site like this with a very demanding “real life” career is simply overwhelming.  So, with that said, I will be moving over to what I consider to be the best baseball resource in the Delaware Valley at Philly Baseball Insider (http://www.phillybaseballblog.com).  I expect to contribute there fairly regularly and appreciate the opportunity to continue my passion working for (with) a friend who is a regular writer for local newspapers and a huge baseball enthusiast.  I expect my participation to be limited until Spring Training, but expect to hit the ground running with pitchers and catchers….

Thanks to all those who have contributed to Phuture Phillies over the years.

Until next time…

 

2015 Reader Top 30

Prospect Rankings

polling booth

So, I’ve gone through our archives and found that Matt ran the Reader Top 30 last year.  I’ve gone through the files and think I’ve figured out how to run a poll.  If you want me to moderate a poll this year, let me know in the survey below.  I propose two modifications.

First, I want to start a little earlier.  Last year the poll ran into the first few days of spring training.  I will be covering spring training and would like to finish the poll articles before it starts.  I also need to work around my schedule in December and January.  A convenient start time for me would be sometime in the next three weeks.

Second, I would like to propose that you submit a personal Top 30 early in the polling process.  I‘m curious how a weighted vote would compare to the day by day survey (30 points for #1, 29 for #2, … 1 for #30).  I’ll set up an e-mail account to receive those submissions.  I would hope to get enough submissions to make a comparison between the two processes relevant.

So, please cast a vote below.  This will also be a nice test to see if I can set up a poll correctly.  (As you can see above, I have figured out how to insert a picture.)  This poll will be active for one week.

Open Discussion: Week of December 1, 2014

Weekly Discussion

In the Dominican Winter League.  Nefi Ogando made his debut for Aguilas Cibaenas.  He pitched a 2-hit, scoreless inning.  Luis Garcia made his debut in the same game for Estrellas de Oriente.  He allowed a hit, walk, and unearned run in his one inning.  Hector Neris had 2 more scoreless outings this past week.

In the Venezuelan Winter League, Ethan Martin was roughed up in his second appearance on the 24th, but came back with a scoreless effort in his next outing.  He pitched a total of 4 innings and allowed 3 earned runs on 5 hits, 4 walks, and struck out four.

The ABL seems to be taking its toll on most of our guys.  Dylan Cozens (.204) was 2 for 10 with 3 Ks this week and was relegated to pinch runner in Sunday’s game.  Brian Pointer (.207) was 0-12 with 4 Ks.  Mitch Walding (.218) was a productive 3-14 with a home run, walk, K, and 7 RBIs.  Chace Numata (.271) was 3-15 with 3 runs scored, 1 RBI, 2 Ks, 2 SB.

Off season stats for all Phillies players can be viewed at: http://mlb.mlb.com/milb/stats/org.jsp?id=phi

With the signing of Yasmany Tomas by Arizona, the list of available free agent outfielders has become less appealing.  If the Phillies are to upgrade, they’ll have to do it from among these players –

Left Fielders – Melky Cabrera (30), Mike Carp (29), Endy Chavez (37), Tyler Colvin (29),
Nelson Cruz (34), Chris Denorfia (34), Cole Gillespie (30), Jonny Gomes (34), Tony Gwynn Jr. (32), Scott Hairston (35), Reed Johnson (38), Jason Kubel (33), Ryan Ludwick (36), Nyjer Morgan (34), Mike Morse (33), Delmon Young (29)

Center Fielders – Emilio Bonifacio (30), Ezequiel Carrera (28), Endy Chavez (37), Nyjer Morgan (34), Colby Rasmus (28)

Right Fielders – Nori Aoki (33), Endy Chavez (37), Tyler Colvin (29), Nelson Cruz (34),
Chris Denorfia (34), Scott Hairston (35), Torii Hunter (39), Nick Markakis (31),
Alex Rios (34), Nate Schierholtz (31), Ichiro Suzuki (41)

On the pitching front, none of the top FA pitchers has signed.  But Oakland has been shopping Jeff Samardzija.  The Mets have been reported as actively trying to trade Bartolo Colon, Dillon Gee or Jon Niese.  Maybe the Mets are trying to exploit the market between the Phillies’ asking price for Cole Hamels and what teams are willing to trade.